This is the Liturgy of the Hours for December 31. Your local date is .
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Liturgy of the Hours Vol. III:
Ordinary: 651
Proper of Seasons: 336
Psalter: Thursday, Week II, 916
Christian Prayer:
Does not contain Office of Readings.
Office of Readings for Thursday in Ordinary Time
God, come to my assistance.
— Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. Alleluia.
HYMN
I am the Lord bringing light through the cloud
Let the Heavens rain down righteousness
Let earth open up, and salvation bear fruit;
Let the Heavens rain down righteousness
I am the Lord your God, beside me there is no other god
I call you by your name let the Heavens rain down righteousness
I the Lord have created it.
I am the Lord bringing light through the cloud
Let the Heavens rain down righteousness
Let earth open up, and salvation bear fruit;
Let the Heavens rain down righteousness
I am the Lord your God, beside me there is no other god
I call you by your name let the Heavens rain down righteousness
I the Lord have created it.
𝄞 | "Isaiah 45" by Kathleen Lundquist • Available for Purchase • Title: Isaiah 45; Lyrics adapted from Revised Standard Version of the Bible; Composer: Kathleen Lundquist; Artist: Kathleen Lundquist; Used with permission. • Albums that contain this Hymn: Sing of Mary |
PSALMODY
Ant. 1 Lord, you are our savior; we will praise you for ever.
Psalm 44
The misfortunes of God’s people
We triumph over all these things through him who loved us (Romans 8:37).
I
We heard with our own ears, O God,
our fathers have told us the story
of the things you did in their days,
you yourself, in days long ago.
To plant them you uprooted the nations:
to let them spread you laid peoples low.
No sword of their own won the land;
no arm of their own brought them victory.
It was your right hand, your arm
and the light of your face: for you loved them.
It is you, my king, my God,
who granted victories to Jacob.
Through you we beat down our foes;
in your name we trampled our aggressors.
For it was not in my bow that I trusted
nor yet was I saved by my sword:
it was you who saved us from our foes,
it was you who put our foes to shame.
All day long our boast was in God,
and we praised your name without ceasing.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Ant. Lord, you are our savior; we will praise you for ever.
Ant. 2 Spare us, O Lord; do not bring your own people into contempt.
II
Yet now you have rejected us, disgraced us:
you no longer go forth with our armies.
You make us retreat from the foe
and our enemies plunder us at will.
You make us like sheep for the slaughter
and scatter us among the nations.
You sell your own people for nothing
and make no profit by the sale.
You make us the taunt of our neighbors,
the laughing stock of all who are near.
Among the nations, you make us a byword,
among the peoples a thing of derision.
All day long my disgrace is before me:
my face is covered with shame
at the voice of the taunter, the scoffer,
at the sight of the foe and the avenger.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Ant. Spare us, O Lord; do not bring your own people into contempt.
Ant. 3 Rise up, O Lord, and save us, for you are merciful.
III
This befell us though we had not forgotten you;
though we had not been false to your covenant,
though we had not withdrawn our hearts;
though our feet had not strayed from your path.
Yet you have crushed us in a place of sorrows
and covered us with the shadow of death.
Had we forgotten the name of our God
or stretched our hands to another god
would not God have found this out,
he who knows the secrets of the heart?
It is for you that we face death all day long
and are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Awake, O Lord, why do you sleep?
Arise, do not reject us for ever!
Why do you hide your face from us
and forget our oppression and misery?
For we are brought down low to the dust;
our body lies prostrate on the earth.
Stand up and come to our help!
Redeem us because of your love!
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Psalm-prayer
Lord, rise up and come to our aid; with your strong arm lead us to freedom, as you mightily delivered our forefathers. Since you are the king who knows the secrets of our hearts, fill them with the light of truth.
Ant. Rise up, O Lord, and save us, for you are merciful.
Sacred Silence (indicated by a bell) – a moment to reflect and receive in our hearts the full resonance of the voice of the Holy Spirit and to unite our personal prayer more closely with the word of God and public voice of the Church.
Lord, to whom shall we go?
— You have the words of eternal life.
READINGS
First reading
From the book of Joshua
5:13-6:21
The enemy’s most powerful city is destroyed
While Joshua was near Jericho, he raised his eyes and saw one who stood facing him, drawn sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you one of us or of our enemies?” He replied, “Neither. I am the captain of the host of the Lord and I have just arrived.” Then Joshua fell prostrate to the ground in worship, and said to him, “What has my Lord to say to his servant?” The captain of the host of the Lord replied to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy.” And Joshua obeyed.
Now Jericho was in a state of siege because of the presence of the Israelites, so that no one left or entered.
And to Joshua the Lord said, “I have delivered Jericho and its king into your power. Have all the soldiers circle the city, marching once around it. Do this for six days, with seven priests carrying ram’s horns ahead of the ark. On the seventh day march around the city seven times, and have the priests blow the horns. When they give a long blast on the ram’s horns and you hear that signal, all the people shall shout aloud. The wall of the city will collapse, and they will be able to make a frontal attack.”
Summoning the priests, Joshua, son of Nun, then ordered them to take up the ark of the covenant with seven of the priests carrying ram’s horns in front of the ark of the Lord. And he ordered the people to proceed in a circle around the city, with the picked troops marching ahead of the ark of the Lord.
At this order they proceeded, with the seven priests who carried the ram’s horns before the Lord blowing their horns, and the ark of the covenant of the Lord following them. In front of the priests with the horns marched the picked troops; the rear guard followed the ark, and the blowing of horns was kept up continually as they marched. But the people had been commanded by Joshua not to shout or make any noise or outcry until he gave the word: only then were they to shout. So he had the ark of the Lord circle the city, going once around it, after which they returned to camp for the night.
Early the next morning, Joshua had the priests take up the ark of the Lord. The seven priests bearing the ram’s horns marched in front of the ark of the Lord, blowing their horns. Ahead of these marched the picked troops, while the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, and the blowing of horns was kept up continually. On this second day they again marched around the city once before returning to camp; and for six days in all they did the same.
On the seventh day, beginning at daybreak, they marched around the city seven times in the same manner; on that day only did they march around the city seven times. The seventh time around, the priests blew the horns and Joshua said to the people, “Now shout, for the Lord has given you the city and everything in it. It is under the Lord’s ban. Only the harlot Rahab and all who are in the house with her are to be spared, because she hid the messengers we sent. But be careful not to take, in your greed, anything that is under the ban; else you will bring upon the camp of Israel this ban and the misery of it. All silver and gold, and the articles of bronze or iron, are sacred to the Lord. They shall be put in the treasury of the Lord.”
As the horns blew, the people began to shout. When they heard the signal horn, they raised a tremendous shout. The wall collapsed, and the people stormed the city in a frontal attack and took it. They observed the ban by putting to the sword all living creatures in the city: men and women, young and old, as well as oxen, sheep and asses.
RESPONSORY See Isaiah 25:1, 2; Hebrews 11:30
O Lord, you are my God; I will extol you and praise your name.
— You have reduced the city to a heap of stones, never to be rebuilt.
After seven days’ procession around Jericho’s walls, Israel’s faith brought them down in ruins.
— You have reduced the city to a heap of stones, never to be rebuilt.
Second reading
From a homily on Joshua by Origen, priest
The capture of Jericho
Once Jericho was surrounded it had to be stormed. How then was Jericho stormed? No sword was drawn against it, no battering ram was aimed at it, no javelins were hurled. The priests merely sounded their trumpets, and the walls of Jericho collapsed.
In the Scriptures Jericho is often represented as an image of the world. There can be no doubt that the man whom the Gospel describes as going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and falling into the hands of brigands is an image of Adam being driven out of paradise into the exile of this world. Likewise the blind men in Jericho, to whom Jesus came to give sight, signified the people in this world who were blinded by ignorance, to whom the Son of God came.
Jericho will fall, then; this world will perish. Indeed in the sacred books the end of the world was proclaimed long ago. How will the world be brought to an end, and by what means will it be destroyed? The answer of Scripture is: By the sound of trumpets. If you ask what trumpets, then let Paul reveal the secret. Listen to what he says: The trumpet will sound, and the dead who are in Christ will rise incorruptible. The voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God will give the signal, and the Lord himself will come down from heaven. Then the Lord Jesus will conquer Jericho with trumpets and destroy it, saving only the harlot and her household.
Jesus our Lord will come, says Paul, and he will come with the sound of trumpets. He will save only the woman who received his spies, that is, his apostles, in faith and obedience, and hid them on the roof of her house; and he will join this harlot to the house of Israel. But let us not bring up her past sins again or impute them to her. She was a harlot once, but now she is joined to Christ, chaste virgin to one chaste husband. Listen to what the Apostle says of her: He has determined to present you to Christ as a chaste virgin to her one and only husband. Indeed, Paul himself had been born of her: Misled by our folly and disbelief, he said, we too were once slaves to our passions and to pleasures of every kind.
If you wish to learn more fully about how this harlot ceased to be a harlot then listen to Paul once again: And such were you also, but you have been cleansed and made holy in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. To assure her escape when Jericho was destroyed, the harlot was given that most effective symbol for salvation, the scarlet cord. For it is by the blood of Christ that the entire Church is saved, in the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom belongs glory and dominion for ever. Amen.
RESPONSORY Isaiah 49:22, 26; John 8:28
See, I will lift up my hand to the nations and raise up my signal for the peoples.
— All mankind shall know that I, the Lord, am your savior, your redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob.
When you have lifted up the Son of Man from the earth, you will know that I am he.
— All mankind shall know that I, the Lord, am your savior, your redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob.
CONCLUDING PRAYER
O God,
from whom all good things come,
grant that we, who call on you in our need,
may at your prompting discern what is right,
and by your guidance do it.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
— Amen.
ACCLAMATION (at least in the communal celebration)
Let us praise the Lord.
— And give him thanks.
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